Delbert: Part 1

The first part in a new short story. It's a prequel to something very famous by Stephen King but I'm not 100% on copyright laws so I will not reveal anything more than that. Although this is entirely my work I used some of the characters and the setting from Stephen King's orignal novel but expanded and gave reasoning behind the events he laid out. Let me know what you think, comments and reviews are always appreciated. Also if you like my work please be sure to check out my first novella, The Lands of Power: Discovery, on Kindle now. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lands-Power-Discovery-ebook/dp/B007JKAISS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332602690&sr=8-1 

So here it is, 'Delbert'. Enjoy. 

Harry Daniel 

Mrs. Grady stared up in wonder at the Overlook Hotel. She was stunned at how such a magnificent place could be nestled up here, so alone in the world, but some how more powerful and foreboding because of it. The grandness of the place made her feel small and insignificant almost as if it had the ability to crush her.

 Her husband, Delbert, slammed the driver's side door and snapped her back into the real world. She smiled at him pretending she pleased to have the opportunity to spend time as a family. Deep down though she was worried. The journey up the mountain had set fear into her heart, they were truly dead to the world this far away and the roads were already beginning to become icy, she dreaded to think what winter could get like up here.

A scream caused her to spin around and face the lawn. All was fine, it was a playful scream from her youngest, Mary. Her sister was chasing her around the lawn.

“Go away Claire!” Mary called back, making no real attempt to put a stop to the game.

Delbert Grady had made his way around the car and put a hand around his wife’s waist and squeezed her close to him, kissing her head in the process.

“Well Julie, baby, what d’ya think of the house, it’s a bit big I know but I’m sure we can cope?” He chuckled softly at his own terrible joke and Julie did her best to laugh along with him.

Truth be told she had hated the idea of it all from the moment she heard about the job offer. “Just a bit of maintenance work and keeping the weather at bay” Delbert had said, “Nothing we can’t handle. Besides It’ll be good to get away from everything.”

 She thought it was far too large a place for the four of them to manage, that the girls would get bored quickly up here and she was worried that Delbert wouldn’t be able to keep his temper under-control when he was around the girls all day. All of which were a likely course in the isolationism they were set to face. 

Despite her thoughts Julie knew better than to share them with her husband, it would only worry him. “I love it darling,” she replied with a gentle, lingering kiss which Julie knew would distract Delbert from the unconvincing answer she had given.

“Good,” Delbert said with a smile. “Why don’t you keep an eye on the girls whilst I go sort out the paper-work with the manager, then we’ll take a look around the place, get acquainted with it all.”

She smiled back to him. “Sounds good to me,” and with a smile more fake than a cheap Rolex, she turned her back on him and wandered lazily over to her children, basking in the cool mountain sunlight.

A few seconds later she turned round to see her husband walking through the big wooden doors of the hotel. He seemed to be care free and happy, strolling along with his hands in his pockets and lips pursed in a whistle. But something still nagged at her about the Overlook, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on but knew was there nonetheless.

 Sadly though, whether she liked it or not, they had made the Overlook their home and so it would be until April when the rich guests would swarm back to enjoy the summer in the mountains. 

5 DAYS LATER

Marry kept as quiet as she could. The youngest Grady girl was curled up in a small ball hidden away in one of the hundred or so kitchen cupboards. She could hear her fathers bare feet slap the cold tiled floor of the kitchen as a stalked around the kitchen trying to find her. She heard him approach her hiding space and held her breath in a foolish attempt not to be caught. The slap of Delbert Grady’s feet stopped right outside Mary’s hiding space. She could feel her heart beat in her throat.

Delbert slide the cupboard door back quickly and revealed his daughter hiding there. Mary let out a screaming giggle as Delbert exclaimed; “I found you!” He reached forward and pulled her out of the cupboard in his strong hands and started to tickle her, to which she responded with more laughter and muffled attempts to plead him to stop.

Mary loved her daddy when he was like this. She had not known him to be that way for a long time but up here he seemed to be happy and didn’t need to be out so late every night. Marry and her sister Claire had been playing hide and seek since breakfast time with their father, it was now approaching dinner and they still wanted to play.

Although the Overlook Hotel was an extremely grand complex there were only so many places in which they could hide. The snow had settled two days before hand so outside was a quickly becoming a treacherous place to hide, most of the rooms were locked and the more public areas of the hotel were largely open planned. But none the less once Delbert had let Mary go she begged him to play another game.

“We can’t start another one yet Mary! What about your sister, we have to find her first.”

“She’s over there,”

 Marry pointed to a cupboard across the room, the door to which slide open, accompanied by a shouting Claire. “Just because you lost again, doesn’t mean you have to ruin it for me! Daddy would never have found me in there!”

“He would so! It was an easy place!”

Delbert interjected. “Girls its ok, how about one more game then we’ll go get your mother to make us some supper?”

Mary quickly ran off with her sister to find another place to hide leaving her father alone to count, again.

***

That night Delbert sat on the floor in front of the fire with Julie. He had his favourite drink, Jack Daniels and coke in his right hand and held Julie’s hand with his left. He took a sip of the drink and kissed his wife on the cheek. He smiled.

1 MONTH LATER.

Delbert first realised how frustrating his family were three days after the snow became so unbearable that it was impossible for them to go outside.

He felt like days were becoming shorter, the hotel seemed smaller. And with the snow came boredom. And his family were always there. He went to read a book, the girls wanted him to play with them. He went to play darts, his wife wanted to talk to him. There was no escape and Delbert began to feel trapped with his over-loving family.

The Jack Daniels and coke that Delbert loved so dearly started having less and less coke and more and more J.D.. And before he knew it Grady was no longer a family man but a town drunk. He struggled to walk most of the time and when he could walk it wasn’t very far. So instead he spent most of his time wondering around the hotel, he had found the keys and had let himself into a few of the rooms to sleep, to stay away from his family. He was happy this way and he had stayed that way for the majority of two weeks, he had scarcely seen his family but Delbert didn’t care though, they were leaving him in peace and that’s just what he wanted.

1 WEEK LATER.

Ullman’s head office was smaller than Julie expected. The entire office was contained in the most unexpected room hidden away behind the reception desk, with an adjoining room to the kitchen on the right hand wall. The room itself contained little more than a small bookshelf, filled mostly with cooking books and managerial expertise guides, two filling cabinets and his large oak desk. Behind and slightly to the left of the desk there was a small shelf with a two-way radio perched on it. Julie sat on Ullman’s desk with her legs dangling over the edge holding the microphone for the radio in her hands as if it were a warm cup of tea.

“Overlook to Outstation 1, over.” She said into the microphone.

The wind rattled violently against the single pained window. A thin sheet of ice had started to form around the edges of the glass giving them a frosted texture that reminded Julie of Christmas’ when she was a child. She always woke up early on Christmas morning, long before the sun rose and melted away the frost from the night before and seeing it now it reminded her that Christmas was not long off.

She sighed. Delbert had not handled the recent entrapment inside the hotel well. The dramatic change in weather had taken them all by surprise but Delbert had taken it the worst. He struggled to keep the girls occupied, as she knew he would and had turned to the drink to solve his problems as he always did. 

“Outstation 1 to Overlook, hearing you load and clear.” The radio was quiet and crackled but the sound of another human’s voice comforted Julie, at least the Grady’s weren’t alone in the world.

“Hello Outstation, I was just wondering what the situation is with the power, we’ve been having power cuts all day and the generators aren’t meant to last forever.” The lights flickered at that moment as if on cue. “Truth be told it’s scaring me a little.”

There was a long pause and Julie worried that they were truly cut off from the world. Silence grew in the little office, not even the wind dared to whistle against the glass.

“Not to worry Overlook, the power is up and down this time of year, but we’ve never had a major problem with it y-...” The line crackled and went dead for a minute. “Oh, spoke to soon there I think,” crackled laughter tumbled from the radio. “Not to worry though everything is a O.K., it’s probably just the wind that’s giving you some trouble. Leave it ‘til the morning and if it’s still giving you jip we’ll do the best we can to get it sorted. Over”

There was a shuffling noise from outside the door as someone slumped past the door, their shadow cast under the gap between the door and the floor by the lights in the reception area. Julie pulled the microphone away from her mouth and called out to the shadow;

“Girls, if that’s you go to bed, I’ll be up to check on you in five minutes and if you’re not in bed then there’s going to big trouble. Delbert hunny if it’s you baby come in here and kiss your wife, I haven’t seen you all day!” She waited, she had hoped it to be Delbert, she was so worried about him. Julie had hoped that he had put his drunken days behind him. She decided she’d go and talk to him after she had finished with the man at the Outlook tower.

“O.K., thank you very much Outlook 1, maybe you could come get us all and we could leave this dastardly place. Over.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re enjoying it much up there. Over.”

Julie paused and looked to the door. The shadow had gone and she felt her heart sink as she thought of Delbert roaming th halls, drunk and alone.

“I can’t say I am much, it’s a bit lonely up here.” She smiled to herself to true and make light of the situation. “Never mind, not much I can do now. Over”

“That’s it, you hang in there and be sure to contact us if there is anything at all that you need. Over.”

“O.K. thank you very much Outlook 1. Over and Out.” The radio went silent and Julie sat there on the desk for a moment, her legs swinging steadily. She stared at the floor, following the pattern on the carpet with her eyes, swirling the large intertwining lines with her absent eyes.

The lights flickered off again and seemed to stay off for an age, Julie became aware of her own heart pounding in her chest. Finally they flashed into life and Julie blinked in the sudden change of light. She slid of Ullman’s desk and place the microphone on top of the radio again.

Julie looked round the small office one more time, unwilling to leave. She felt comfortable in here, Delbert wasn’t the only one who wanted time to himself. She daintily stepped round the desk to the bookcase and browsed the unvaried selection, her finger skimming over the spines, none of which had a crease mark. Just for show, she thought, reflecting on her years spent putting on a happy face whilst Delbert struggled to break free from the bonds that he had cast with his heavy drinking. Julie walked to the door and with her hand on the handle and the other on the light switch and with another deeper and more heartfelt sigh, she flickered the switch and left Ullman’s office in darkness.